


Marginal Notes

by shinobi93



Category: Henry IV - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Prompt Fill, School, Sixth Form College, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1944342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharing a maths textbook was never a way Hal expected to flirt with anybody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marginal Notes

**Author's Note:**

> [notkingyet](notkingyet.tumblr.com) prompted me with ""sharing a high school school textbook and leaving each other notes and answers in page corners au” sounds like damn good Hal/Poins times to me so maybe that?", and I couldn't help but turn it into a sixth form college AU. There should always be more ridiculous Shakespeare AUs, that is my excuse.
> 
> Only warnings are for alcohol and smoking.
> 
> Side note: for people not familiar with the school system in England, sixth form is the last two years at school, so ages 16-18 approximately. Hal and Poins are both 18, in their second year of sixth form (also known as Year 13, though I don't mention that here).

Harry Monmouth, Hal to all those who don’t want to be threatened by Jack Falstaff, has perfected clever yet cool in a way no one else has. When he told his father he wanted to leave his ridiculously exclusive current school for ‘one in the city’, Henry had assumed his son meant Westminster, not the sixth form college that to Henry’s horror barely seemed to have entry standards, and certainly not monetary ones. Now, over a year later, Hal has made the place his. A friendly smile and tendency to share or give away an assortment of things - from pens to the packs of cigarettes he purposefully buys extra of - endeared him despite the privilege that oozes from his skin. Getting good marks is accepted as a quirk of his, a posh boy thing he can’t help, but he’ll offer you some of his vodka to make up for it.

 

-

 

It’s November and bitterly cold, but they’re sitting outside, Hal and Jack and other friends, perched atop a picnic bench and smoking, trading banter for lack of a better way to spend the lunch hour.

‘What time’s it?’ grunts Jack, Hal’s closest friend. He scorns mobile phones for no discernible reason, relying on Hal for both timekeeping and making calls.

‘Fuck off, why’d you care?’ Hal grins. ‘Not like you’re gonna go to your lesson when the bell goes.’

‘Piss off you geek, go do some _reading_ or some shit.’ 

Hal stands just as the bell rings, sends a two fingered retort in Jack’s direction, and cracks open a can of Coke as he walks off. Everyone will assume he’s spiked it with something, though he hasn’t. Inside D block, the corridors are packed, and it takes Hal a good few minutes of casual shoves and glares to make it to the stairs. He’s a few steps up when he hears his name being called and spins around, crashing into the person behind.

Coke drips off the textbook in the guy’s arms. Hal takes in the angry look, the leather jacket, the tatty but now ruined textbook, and puts on his most apologetic smile.

‘What book’s that?’ he asks, ready to offer to buy a new one. The guy’s look softens slightly, at the realisation he might get compensation, or at least an apology. These books aren’t cheap: the school can’t afford to buy them for the students, most people buy secondhand ones off older students.

‘A2 Maths.’

‘Not much of a loss, is it?’ Aware this might not be construed well, Hal continues. ‘I do Maths too, what’s with all the shitty real life examples? Making it fun?’

The guy grins without realising, then stops. They’re holding up the whole staircase. Hal’s mind works quickly. Maybe this is someone he’d like to know.

‘Listen, I have the book too, but we’re not in the same class, right? Why don’t we just share mine for now, until I can order you a new one?’

Leather jacket guy looks down at his sodden book, then back up.

‘Fine.’

Hal pulls his textbook out of his bag, scribbles his name and number on the first page, and hands it over. ‘Text and we’ll sort out swapping it over. Like shared custody. Only don’t glare like that, or our darling textbook will think we don’t love it any more.’

The guy glares, but takes the book.

‘Poins.’

‘What?’

‘My name. You wrote yours.’

Hal walks up a couple of stairs, then looks back down.

‘Is that a real name?’

Poins raises his eyebrows and smirks. ‘Is yours?’

 

-

 

As he walks through the front gate the next morning, the book is unexpectedly thrust into his hands. Hal looks, but Poins is gone.

‘Hal,’ calls out Jack Falstaff, waving a desperate hand in a clear I-need-a-fag-you’d-better-have-one gesture. Hal strides over and chucks over a packet, whilst Jack peers over at the book. ‘Doing maths on the way, you fucking nerd?’

‘Something like that,’ mutters Hal, not feeling like disclosing the truth.

 

-

 

Second period that day Hal has Maths, stuck in a chilly classroom on the third floor. Pulling out his textbook, he notices something new written on the first page. It is a second number, written under Hal’s in a pointy scrawl, and the words ‘don’t feed it too many sweets, or you’ll spoil our darling’. Hal grins and turns the pages, spotting one corner folded down. The page has more of the pointy scrawl: commentary on the questions, question marks, and ‘DO YOU FUCKING GET THIS?’ at the bottom, underlined twice. The teacher’s talking now, explaining the lesson’s work, but Hal does nothing more than scribble down the set questions and return to the graffitied page. He does fucking get it. Hal is good at maths, at calculations and theoretical formulae; it barely takes him effort at all. Perhaps the only thing his father still likes about him.

Instead of the set work, Hal writes in the book, a combination of answers and explanation, in his own neater handwriting. He adds in drawings and an example involving measuring shots of alcohol to counter the maths genius part, writing explanations with liberal uses of the word ‘shit’. This completed, he sets about doing his actual work, running through the integration problems quickly, brain multitasking to continue thinking about the leather jacketed guy with the angry look.

Pulling out his phone, Hal types in the second number from the book’s title page, and sends a message.

_Gate, 4pm. You owe me._

 

-

 

Hal has never flirted via textbook before. It is strangely refreshing. Handwritten banter amongst answers and explanations where Poins gets stuck. Hal asks for advice about a topic for a history essay and gets suggested reading written around the page for inverse trigonometry. They talk only in short sentences exchanged as the textbook is handed back and forth. Otherwise, nothing is different: Hal goes out with Jack and the others, loiters around smoking with them, buys drinks with his father’s money. Poins, Hal learns, is seen as quiet, slightly threatening, not very clever. Hal disagrees with all of these. Pleased to discover - via handwritten questioning - that Poins also has an early birthday, can also legally go out drinking, Hal sets about considering the best moment to suggest they spend time together in person. Not yet, he thinks. Not until he’s sure Poins will say yes.

 

-

 

His stomach drops the second he sees them, standing facing one another. Jack Falstaff and Ned Poins (Hal had laughed when Poins had explained that no, it wasn’t Ed, it was Ned, underlining the N dramatically). Hal had hoped they would never coincide: not for any real reason, other than a desire to keep them separate, to stop Jack from discovering exactly how Hal was using that ‘maths geek bullshit’ that he shrugged off so casually in company. He readies himself, lies at his fingertips, hoping Jack won’t say anything to make Poins pull out the sharpened pen he keeps in his inside jacket pocket, an unobtrusive weapon (another detail slipped into the margin of the textbook, though Hal had made a ‘bad influence’ comment rather than admit how much he liked this fact).

Stepping closer, Hal does not hear raised voices. Jack’s larger frame and Poins’ skinny one provide a neat contrast as they stand smoking. The infamous textbook is poking out of the top of Poins’ ratty bag, the one with ‘The Clash’ stenciled across it. This detail explains why Poins is there, at the bench claimed by Hal and his friends as their own, in the corner of the college site least frequented by teachers. Without any plans for book exchange, Poins has taken the obvious option, and gone to find Hal, although Hal was sure they weren’t meant to swap it back just yet.

‘Hal,’ says Jack loudly, in a familiar way. ‘You’re wanted. Thought we had a trespasser, but he was generous, so I let 'im stay wait for you.’

Jack gestures the cigarette. Ah, Hal thinks, of course, how did Poins know the way to Jack’s acceptance. He looks over, and Poins shrugs, mouth inclining slightly.

‘Ah, my textbook partner,’ Hal exclaims quickly. Jack looks confused, but Poins butts in before Hal can speak.

‘Your twat of a friend split Coke all over my book, so now we share until he can get off his lazy arse and buy me a new one.’

Poins raises his eyebrows at Hal, and Hal thinks, he knows, he knows why I’ve not bought the new book yet.

‘Gimme a few more fags and maybe I’ll remind him about the book every now and then.’

Hal laughs. ‘Shameless, Jack, shameless.’ He hands a couple of cigarettes to his friend, then turns and holds out one to Poins. ‘Return for the one you gave him.’

Poins waves a hand. ‘I’ll cash in that debt at a later date, I think.’ He holds out the textbook, which Hal takes, clasping tight so Jack can’t see inside. A casual transaction. ‘Right, got some all important lessons to not go to. Fascinating to meet you, Jack.’ Poins waves dramatically and leaves. Hal lights the untaken cigarette as Jack speaks.

‘Bit of a twat, but I suppose he’s alright.’ Jack looks over with the face that Hal recognises, a combination of sneaky and nosy that he reserves for one specific area of Hal’s life. ‘You shagged him?’

‘No.’

‘Not yet?’

Hal punches Jack’s arm and wishes he’d added who he finds attractive to the list of things not to tell Jack Falstaff.

 

-

 

Hal thinks nothing of the unexpected book delivery, other than imagining how Poins will want to cash in the cigarette debt that is barely a debt. He doesn’t look in the textbook, not needed until the following day’s Maths lesson, but spends the evening with a bunch of older guys he meets in the pub, letting them marvel at his abilities on the quiz machine in the corner until he gets bored, and moves onto a different pub, where he sits at the bar drinking and deciding that he’d take Poins to neither establishment. Ned Poins, with the glitter nail varnish he’s spilt twice over the textbook and tendency to offer drink recommendations in return for Maths help, is getting at the very least a pub further away than a short bus ride, or better still, somewhere that sells cocktails, decent ones not the huge pitchers everybody drinks when they have the money, or Hal’s buying.

He waits until it is late enough to vaguely annoy his father, then goes home.

 

-

 

Whilst half the class are trying to work out how to switch their calculators between degrees and radians, Hal flicks the pages of his textbook, looking for the most recently folded down page corner. The page has a typical amount of scribblings, ranging from a sniggering comment about needing to find ‘sec x’ to an offer to let Hal sit his exam for him, and Hal is busy smiling at them and adding his own when he sees the final note, scrawled at the bottom of the page.

_Fancy a drink?_

Hal knows what to do. He strolls over to the front of the class, grabs a board pen, and returns to his seat to write ‘yes’ in massive letters across the cover of his textbook. They’re exchanging it at the end of the day.

 

-

 

Standing by the college gate, Poins takes the offered textbook, reads the cover, and offers Hal a meeting point for that evening. Place, time, ‘don’t wear anything too shit, alright?’. Hal has one question.

‘Are we bringing the precious textbook?’

‘I’ll get a babysitter.’

 

-

 

Hal is in Ned Poins’ room, or, more accurately, Ned Poins’ bed. He runs a hand through his hair and it returns covered in glitter: Poins’ idea of getting a drink only begins with the drink. Beside him, Poins pokes at his bare back.

‘What?’

‘Will you get me a fucking new textbook now?’

‘But how will we talk?’

‘We won’t. We’ll only communicate through fucking mime.’

Hal rolls over and sighs. ‘Fine, I’ll get you the book. Now, didn’t I owe you a debt?’

‘A cigarette plus interest. I’ll let you choose how to pay it.’

‘Lucky, ‘cause you couldn’t fucking calculate the interest.’

‘Twat.’


End file.
